Goddammit man, I just explained why there's a "hard problem." — Terrapin Station
That's fine that you think that, but that you do is a combo of the reasons I explained. Including that you are confused in thinking that it's a category error. That was part of my explanation. — Terrapin Station
Explain why only certain brain states are conscious? — Marchesk
How do you "reach an understanding"? — Harry Hindu
Explain why only certain brain states are conscious? — Marchesk
...you apparently don't even have a view about just what counts or doesn't count as an explanation in general, including why it counts or doesn't count, yet you're offering criticism on the grounds of whether something is an explanation. — Terrapin Station
when it should have led to a story about the difference between being awake and asleep. — Banno
↪Terrapin Station explanation is like pornography. You know one when you see it. The dictionary definition you gave is very generic and simple. Say for example I asked for an explanation of water. There are simple explanations one would give a child, and there is chemistry, which explains the properties of water. The second one is what I would expect for consciousness. — Marchesk
when it should have led to a story about the difference between being awake and asleep. — Banno
A purported explanation should make what it purports to explain clear, otherwise it is no more than a purported explanation. Terrapin Station is being slippery in order to evade admitting that he cannot give an explanation. I have seen him employing this tactic many times. — Janus
What I'm rather doing is highlighting what the real problem is when it comes to the "hard problem." A real problem that no one wants to address. — Terrapin Station
Well then, just spell out the real problem. — Marchesk
Give your analysis of what an explanation is. — Marchesk
Shit or get off the pot Terrapin. Socrates would be murdered here just as in Greece for being an annoying shithead. — bert1
You're missing the point that this isn't just about explanations of consciousness. If we're critiquing something in terms of whether there's an explanation, then we'd better have a general account of what explanations are, what they can and can't do, how they do it, etc.An explanation of the consciousness in my book would explain how certain brain states are conscious and others are not. It would tell us whether a machine would be conscious. We would understand how the philosophical zombie argument goes wrong. We would know what a bat experiences when it uses sonar, at least in the same way Mary knows what blue is while she's still confined to the black & white room. — Marchesk
Maybe more mapping will inspire clues to look in new directions. But the mapping in and of itself does not bring us closer to bridging the Explanatory Gap. Lets say Science has mapped every Neuron to some sort of Conscious Experience. How does that get rid of the Gap? We have known for a Hundred years that there are mappings from Neural Activity to Conscious Experience. But the magnitude of the Gap remained about the same over those Hundred years.The question is: How is Neural Activity Mapped to the Conscious Experience? There is a huge Explanatory Gap involved in any kind of Mapping or measurement of Neural Correlates. — SteveKlinko
There is, but better mapping/measurements could lead us to clues and reduce the explanatory gap. Assuming this is impossible is assuming that our a priori arguments for the hard problem are bullet proof. And history isn't kind to that sort of certainty. — Marchesk
However, I was reminded of it when trying to think of what explanation means, and not having a good answer come to mind without consulting a dictionary. Or at least, not one which didn't lead to murky waters. — Marchesk
One conventional dictionary definition of "explanation" is "a statement or account that makes something clear." — Terrapin Station
Isn't that more than sufficient for our needs? If not, what does it lack? — Pattern-chaser
What's to stop anyone from effectively arbitrarily saying that something is or isn't an explanation in that case? — Terrapin Station
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